A figure emerged from the crowd and waded into the river to be baptized.
It was Jesus.
John held up his hand, bidding Jesus to stop. “I am the one who has the need of you to baptize me,” John said to Jesus.
Why am I to baptize you, since you are already without sin?
“Suffer it to be so now,” Jesus answered. “It becomes us to fulfill all righteousness.”
John lowered Jesus into that cool, clear water. Jesus rose up, water running from his long brown hair. The heavens opened, and the Spirit descended like a dove and lighted upon him.
A voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
John shuddered, staring at Jesus.
Jesus smiled gently and embraced him. “I must go. Farewell.” Gathering his belongings, he walked away.
John looked about the crowd. To one side, he spotted a well-dressed gentleman to whom he was distantly related.
The Arimathean is getting on in years. Will he recognize me? It has been so long.
Seeing no others waiting, John walked out of the river toward Joseph, who greeted him with an outstretched hand.
“This is a fine day,” said Joseph. “You will be remembered for this.”
“I am humbled,” John answered. “Yet I am perplexed. Jesus did not answer my question.”
“I know.”
“Jesus is the unblemished one, the one without sin. Was he not already reconciled fully to God?”
“Look at him, now, as he makes his way to the wilderness,” said Joseph.
John looked into the distance, where the tiny figure of Jesus walked slowly across the rocky terrain.
“He is being led by the Spirit,” said Joseph. “The path before him remains a long one, but it is still the path of the lamb who is led to the slaughter. Yet, he walks the path of obedience, to suffering and death, without complaint. It was not always so for him.”
“Are you saying that he rebelled against the Father in Heaven? The Lamb of God must be unblemished!”
“I did not say he rebelled or was blemished. Only that he complained. Who are we to judge whether Jesus or anyone else is blemished? God alone is the judge. Nevertheless, Jesus is now baptized: that means he is perfectly reconciled to God, and he will remain so. That is the true path of salvation that Jesus lays open for all, including those who come broken. I believe this baptism signifies the reconciliation of Jesus to his human nature. Many years ago, God called him to the painful task that lies before him. He had choices open to him, and there was much sound and fury, but in the end he chose to obey the Father.
“I was there to see it. All the sound and fury of Jesus’s anger signified something, for the depth of that fury was overcome by a far greater abiding love between Father and Son.
“I think it was for Jesus as it was with Job, who remained a righteous man in the eyes of God, even though his tribulations stirred him to great anger. It was his friends who were called to account by God for telling Job to make an insincere repentance. Because God is just, he made recompense to Job, and thus they were reconciled. A righteous man can be stirred to righteous anger with God. He can be without sin and yet call for reconciliation.”
Ynys Witrin, Britannia Province, 73 A.D., during the reign of Vespasian, ninth emperor of Rome
“There you are, young man.” Brother Kenan said. “Walk with me.”
Ponticus turned and followed the older man, though Kenan was going in the opposite direction. A dusting of snow lay on the ground. He pulled his cloak tighter against the chill breeze. The basket of food he carried weighed on his hand. He shifted it to the other side.
“Settling in all right?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
A smile crinkled around Kenan’s eyes. “What brought you to our little brotherhood?”
“My bishop in Lugdunum sent me here to study.”
“All the way from Gaul. Very good. And are your studies going well?”
“Yes, very. Only…”
“What?”
“Why do you call yourselves
Culdees
, sir? It means
refugees
, does it not?”
“Indeed it does. Our founders fled Jerusalem with the master, soon after the Lord’s death and resurrection.”
“I see.”
Kenan led him along the base of Wearyall. “You’re tending our master these days, are you not?”
“I am, sir. A great privilege for one so new.” The master was the same Joseph of Arimathea who had buried Jesus in his own tomb. “To even see him, let alone to care for him, is an unutterable joy.”
“Indeed. Now look here.” They approached a thorn, unaccountably in bloom.
“How…how is it possible?” Ponticus asked.
Kenan put down his toolbox and threw back the hood of his cloak, revealing a head bald but for a thin ring of silver hair. “Upon arriving at Wearyall—the boats put in right there”—Kenan turned and gestured to the water—“Joseph declared he had no further need of an old man’s walking stick. He planted his staff in the ground to claim the country for Christ. In the ground right here.” He walked around the tree, gazing up at its budding branches. “The staff sprouted into this mysterious thorn, the only one of its kind that blooms twice a year—once in rhythm to the native thorns of Britain, and again in rhythm to the thorns of Galilee.”
“That’s…that’s impossible,” Ponticus said.
Kenan glared at him. “That’s miraculous, young man.”
Ponticus nodded.
Kenan took a hatchet from a loop on his belt and pointed to a flowering branch. “Hold that.”
Ponticus held the branch while Kenan hacked at it. “Do the Culdees own the whole island, sir?”
“Arvigarus, king of the Silures, granted the community twelve hides of land, including the Tor and the island. We’ve been working this land and spreading the good news to the Britons for more than forty years now.”
“The Romans don’t try to stop you?”
“I do wish you’d say
us
instead of
you
, lad.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“The Romans have been Britain’s rulers, ostensibly, for these last thirty-some years. Fortunately, they see this as a backwater of a backwater, so we have escaped the persecutions our brethren faced under Emperor Nero.” With a final blow, the branch came loose in Ponticus’s hand. “Take that back to our master.”
Ponticus put the branch in the basket alongside the cheeses and bread, and he turned toward the Tor.
Kenan walked silently beside him.
“Is it true what the brothers say about the church?” asked Ponticus. “That it was not constructed through the art of any man?”
Kenan nodded. “Our Lord Jesus himself built it as a home for his mother Mary, when Master Joseph brought him to Britain as a young man. The local folk refer to it as ‘Secret of the Lord.’ Some say that the Virgin Mary returned with Master Joseph and was buried here, but they keep that a big secret. There are many wonderful tales of Jesus’s doings in Britain. Ask Master Joseph. He’ll surely answer you. Good day.” Kenan turned away, and Ponticus continued toward the Tor.
The wattle-and-daub church, the largest of twelve buildings arrayed in a circle, sat near the foot of the Tor. Ponticus walked to the house directly opposite the church. He paused at the master’s threshold. Joseph was now aged, bedridden and infirm. The master might be a frail whisper of a man, but he was a giant figure among Christians, the great-uncle of Lord Jesus Christ himself.
“Who are you?” the old man grumbled from his bed.
“I am Ponticus, sir. I will tend to your needs today, as I did yesterday and the day before.” He walked in and put the basket on the little table.
“Bah. You’re not one of the brothers. Send for Lazarus. He knows how to take care of me.”
“I am sorry, Master, but Lazarus is working in the orchard with all the brothers. They are harvesting the apples and pears, and they left me to tend to you.”
“So, you will have to do.”
Ponticus smiled. They’d had the same conversation over the last two days.
“Brother Kenan sent this.” He handed Master Joseph the thorn tree branch, a sprig the length of his forearm. It was covered in tiny white flowers.
“Ah, it blossoms still.” Joseph gave a hacking laugh and placed the sprig on the little table near his bed.
Ponticus offered Joseph porridge and apple juice for his breakfast. Lazarus had left some rabbit hides to be made into a blanket, so Ponticus got out needle and sinew, and started piecing them together. As he worked, he took Kenan’s advice to ask questions of Joseph. “The brothers told me that you brought Jesus to Britain, but the accounts written by Mark, Luke, and Matthew say nothing about the Lord’s time here. They only mention you as the man who buried the Lord after the crucifixion. I hear that John of Ephesus is writing an account. Do you think he will be telling more about your part than Matthew, Mark, and Luke did?”
The old man sat up in bed and glared at Ponticus. “He’d better not! Luke was the physician to Paul of Tarsus, and he wrote to me after Paul was martyred. He asked me to send him something to include in his account of the life of Jesus from the time he taught in the temple until he began his ministry. I wrote back and told him he should only say that after the time he taught in the temple at the age of twelve, Jesus grew in his wisdom and in the favor of God and man. I did not want any of them to include the part about how I buried Jesus, but they said that was important because it fulfilled the prophecy that a rich man buried him, as if I were rich...”
Ponticus became concerned by the old man’s coughing and choking, until he realized it was only laughter. “Why did you want to exclude the wonderful story of Jesus in Britain?”
“It makes the message too confusing. We are trying to bring the good news to the Romans and to the world beyond. The Romans have always despised the druids. I didn’t much care for them myself. But Jesus learned much from them, and he taught them, too. I believe they had an important role in bringing out his divine nature so he could understand it from a human perspective. I believe the Romans will come to accept the good news one day—but not if they confuse it with druidism, which it is not.”
“What influence did the druids and the Britons have upon Jesus?”
“I think everyone Jesus encountered in his life nurtured him in some way, within the context of God’s plan. The most important thing was coming to accept his destiny to suffer death on the cross, because that was the purpose of his incarnation to live among us. It need not have happened in Britain. It could have happened elsewhere.”
“But you were there that day at Stonehenge. You saw all that business with Bran’s Cauldron, did you not?”
“There is only one true God, who lives through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Scripture talks of all sorts of supernatural creatures; it mentions seraphim, angels, archangels, and demons, to name a few. I never understood who the Tuatha Dé Danann really were, but I am sure they were just different creatures of our almighty God. Whatever happened that day at Stonehenge was ultimately the work of the true God. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and it does not matter if he uses Tuatha Dé Danann, whatever manner of creature they be, to accomplish his purposes.”
“Why would God use the druids, of all people?”
“Jesus told me later that the whole point of his sacrifice was that it had to be his own exercise of free will, not only of his divine nature, but something embraced by his human nature as well. For Jesus’s sacrifice to become the pathway of salvation for a broken world, he had to suffer all the doubts and pain of a broken humanity. He had to make his choice as a true sacrifice, not from the expectation of resurrection and glory. Bran’s Cauldron appeared only after Jesus made his choice to suffer death upon the cross. He told me later that he never saw it coming when he, in his human nature, made the choice to obey the Father even unto death.”
“What happened to Jesus and Daniel after that day at Stonehenge?”
“God, whether in the person of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, works across all time and space. I believe that Jesus truly connected with his divine nature when he made the choice to suffer death on the cross, and after that he lived every day of his life in the pain of his crucifixion. He told me that his days in Britain gave him strength to bear the pain, because he could also live in the happier times he had here before he understood the path of suffering and pain he was destined to follow. He said that he came to call those years his days of ‘awe and joy.’”
“Awe and joy,” Ponticus repeated. “It makes me happy to know Our Lord experienced that, and that it helped him to bear the pain of his sacrifice.”
“I brought Jesus and Mary back to Galilee,” the master continued. “He traveled the known world, learning everything he could before the time came for his ministry. Daniel stayed in Britain and married a Celtic woman. He preserved Mary’s house until I returned after the Lord’s Passion. These days, Daniel preaches throughout Britain.”
“I’ve seen no druids since I’ve come to this country. What happened to them?”
The Master sighed. “By the time the Romans came, druidism was already weakened. Some of them followed Elsigar across the seas and were never heard from again. Some of them embraced the good news I brought back to Britain. The Romans brutally suppressed any that still clung to their old ways. The final straw occurred when the druids harbored fugitives from Rome on Ynys Môn. The druids thought their own gods and the fast flowing waters of the Afon Menai would protect them. General Gaius Suetonius Paulinus proved them wrong. He crossed the waters with his army at slack tide and slaughtered those he found on the island. The only druids who now remain anywhere in the world are those in Eire and Caledonia.”
Ponticus prepared to ask another question, but Master Joseph waved him off.
“I am tired now, Ponticus. You must let me rest. You ask good questions. I will answer more when I am able.”
The Arimathean dozed off, but he never made good on his promise. Within hours he had a high fever. From time to time he awoke, but he kept coughing up fluid and could not speak coherently.
All the brother hermits gathered around Joseph’s bedside that evening, knowing their Master’s time was nigh. Once again, the Arimathean awoke from his fever-ridden sleep. He propped himself up on one elbow, and his eye fell upon a carving against the far wall. “Jesus!” he cried, reaching out his hand. He tried to get out of bed, but his knees buckled, and he collapsed on the floor. He continued to hold out his hand and call to the statue.